CONFIGURATOR

What can you do with Enterprise Configurator?

You have had interaction with configurators without even realizing it. Today most items that we purchase have options, selections or choices. Whether it’s a car, industrial equipment, Nike shoes or even T-Shirts are being configured with the use of a configurator. With configurator, you can:

Configure Custom Quotes

Configure Complete Proposals with Attachments

Configure Complete Made to Order Jobs

Configure Engineer to Order Products with Bills of Materials and Routings

Deploy with most ERP Systems – including Cloud & Onsite

Why Configurator?

Odds are good that you currently configure your quotes and products manually in some sort of spreadsheet or another type of document. This process gets the job done but it is time consuming and might even be using your engineering resources. Electronic Configurator allows you to consolidate, centralize and record the knowledge of the most senior members of your sales and engineering team and make it available to everyone in your organization in order to accelerate the sales process.

The sales process then becomes a repeatable process that is efficient and responsive to the needs of your customer. If you offer a product that is customizable, you will benefit from the sales process framework that configurator creates.

Configurator creates confidence in your organization by quickly generating accurate, detailed and professional looking quotes to your customers. This translates to more quote conversions because your customer expects that you will deliver a product to them at the same professional quality with which you handled the sales process.

You can condense your most complex sales and engineering knowledge into rules of the configurator, which in turn will allow you to trust that both your junior sales person and outside dealers will be able to configure a quote, product, job, or production order that is both accurate and competitive.
Your complex sales process turns into a simple guided click-through application. Configurator utilizes the pricing, product and customer data from your ERP and other applications to produce a quote along with bills of materials, routings, and drawings which will be used in the actual manufacturing and delivery of the product to your customer. Your high-cost engineering and senior sales staff is able to focus on strategic initiatives instead of spending their days in a race to deliver a quote to your customers.

With e-Con configurator you can achieve faster sales and manufacturing process. Configurator allows you to embed into software your complex rules for building Quotes, Orders and Jobs. By doing so, you are able to shorten your quote to shipment cycle.

An example of a list of options displayed during configuration

e-Con configurator Features and Capabilities

Guided, repeatable process

Salespeople utilize a guided, repeatable process to configure a quote for a customer

Intuitive, self-explanatory

The process is intuitive and self-explanatory. There is typically little or no training required.The process is fast and guarantees a quick turn-around for a customer, generating confidence that their order will be fulfilled in the same fashion

Built-in expertise

Automatic calculations

Choosing a specific component during configuration is automatically reflected by hiding incompatible options and presenting approved options. Prices and lead times are automatically calculated

Trusted advisor

Your company’s expertise is built into the rules, enabling even junior salespeople to become a trusted advisor to the customer

Accurate

Pricing and proposal is correct every time based on the current pricing and defined rules

New items

During configuration the user can define items that do not even exist in your ERP
the configurator can automatically create them in the ERP when the quote turns into an order

Immediate feedback

Configuration choices are instantly reflected in the visual display of the product, providing immediate feedback with 2-D or 3-D view.
Configuration rules assure that only allowed product combinations are offered to your customer

Attractive quotes

Attractive quote documents are generated, including pictures and attachments

Any device

Web-based

Since the application is fully web-based, it can also be deployed to your dealers, distributors or directly to your customers. Access is controlled by the use of security on your sales portal

Customer specific pricing

Your customer specific pricing from your ERP is applied.
Configuration process can be paused in mid-step and finished later

Version tracking

Already configured quotes can be reconfigured later. Complete tracking of all previous quote versions is available

Reconfigure anytime

Quotes configured on the dealer portal for example, can be later reconfigured inside the ERP software

Configuration matching

Configuration matching is employed to further speed-up the sales process. If the system detects an existing configuration with matching properties, it allows the user to skip the manual configuration.
Can configure not just one product but complete a sales order with multiple items on it.

Configuration templates

Achieve major efficiency improvements with predefined configuration templates. Both common and customer-specific templates can be created
The system first checks for existing templates and brings them up if available. Selection options enable users to work with an existing template or start from scratch

Polished documentation

Quote documents include pricing, options selected, specifications, pictures, drawings, terms and conditions and other material that you want to have merged into the final document

Quote templates

You can have an unlimited number of quote templates. You can have different templates for each of your product lines for example, or for different types of customers

Dynamically updated

What information and text is inserted into the final quote document is dynamically updated based on the options and choices selected during configuration

Display Options

Complex scenarios

There is no limitation to how complex your product may be, how many options there are, or how many levels deep the BOM goes. The configurator can handle even the most complex scenarios

BOMs, routings, assembly instructions

Integration with your MRP means that options and features selected during the configuration are automatically translated into BOMs, routings, assembly instructions, equipment lists, and xml-based output for CAD and CNC systems

CAD and CNC systems

Integration with your MRP means that options and features selected during the configuration are automatically translated into BOMs, routings, assembly instructions, equipment lists, and xml-based output for CAD and CNC systems

Subassemblies, Phantom Items, Kits

Subassemblies, phantom items, and kits can be used in the automatically created BOMs
The items to be included on the configured BOM can be driven by option selection, calculation result, or item dependency

Setup times, run times, wait times

Routings are automatically generated based on rules and selections. Setup times, run times, wait times and other router parameters are calculated

Smart part numbers

Configurator allows the use of smart part numbers or automatically generates new part numbers based on rules

No engineering time required

There is no need for engineering time because the configuration follows the engineering constraints. The entire job is configured according to the rules you defined and the constraints that currently exist in your ERP software
The BOM, routing, tools, new items and other information specific to the quoted job does not have to be written into your ERP production tables until it turns into an order

ERP integration

Integrated with the ERP system

Wizards

Wizards to help design questions
Rules based configurator

Drag and drop

Drag and drop to define calculation and data
Person setting up the rules and constraints does not have to have a computer background in order to do it

Off-line

Possible to use it off-line for times when connection to your ERP system is not possible

Real-Time

Data entry and maintenance of your item, pricing, and customer data stays in your ERP, the configurator uses the most current ERP data for its calculations

Customer-specific pricing

The price quote is based on the customer-specific data already setup in your MRP system and can be further modified by rules and any additional calculations you define

Multiple data sources

The data used during configuration and price calculation can be based not only on data from your ERP software, but also on other software, custom tables and databases, spreadsheets or xml documents
The price can be based on discounts or markups and rolled up from the lowest level of your BOM

Configuration of tools

Allows configuration of tools that will be required to make the product

Quantity-break pricing

Allows quoting quantity-break pricing

Margin Analysis

Margin analysis of the quoted job can be displayed in real-time as the configuration is done

HTML5

Uses the latest HTML5 user interface which makes it cross-browser and cross-platform compatible, including iOS and Android. This means the configurator can run on iPads, Android tablets and smart phones

Cross-browser and cross-platform

Uses the latest HTML5 user interface which makes it cross-browser and cross-platform compatible, including iOS and Android. This means the configurator can run on iPads, Android tablets and smart phones

iPads, tablets and smartphones

Uses the latest HTML5 user interface which makes it cross-browser and cross-platform compatible, including iOS and Android. This means the configurator can run on iPads, Android tablets and smart phones

XML technology

It is built on the .net platform with C# engine. The core architecture is designed around the latest XML technology with open architecture, which allows it to be easily integrated and embedded into existing dealer or customer portals and CRM systems
To ensure maximum flexibility and reduce complex and costly data synchronization, the configurator is designed to work as an intelligent layer on top of any application

Dealer and customer portals

It is built on the .net platform with C# engine. The core architecture is designed around the latest XML technology with open architecture, which allows it to be easily integrated and embedded into existing dealer or customer portals and CRM systems
To ensure maximum flexibility and reduce complex and costly data synchronization, the configurator is designed to work as an intelligent layer on top of any application

Business-rules engine

A declarative business-rules engine automatically checks related business rules when a parameter or configuration question is changed

Flexible start

Users are not bound to a single, directional, sequential flow of questions. They can start at any point in the process with the assurance of accurate results

Re-configuration processes

The rules engine supports configuration and re-configuration processes, including checks on new model versions
The rules engine is also able to check for existing configurations to prevent redundant information

An example of a mobile interface for your iPad, iPhone, Android or any other smartphone or tablet- the configurator automatically detects and presents the correct interface based on what device you log in from